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Could Denver host a Super Bowl?

Cold weather key factor in getting big game

By Mike Klis The Denver Post

Posted:
01/30/2013 11:08:19 PM MST

Updated:
01/30/2013 11:08:40 PM MST

NEW ORLEANS -- In a city where there's land below sea level, the air is thick and stomachs are filled with gumbo and catfish, it's not easy finding minds open to a Super Bowl played at a mile high, where the air is thin and the temperature chills moisture into snow.

A Super Bowl played outdoors in Denver during the first week of February?

And he's the quarterback who grew up in New Jersey, and beat the Broncos in a Jan. 12 playoff game by throwing for 331 yards and three touchdowns in minus-degree windchill conditions at Denver's Sports Authority Field at Mile High.

"The problem with playing this game in Denver is the Broncos don't want a cold-weather Super Bowl," said Michael Irvin, a Hall of Fame receiver with the Dallas Cowboys who is now an NFL analyst. "They've got Peyton (Manning). We just saw that. You can't tell me that cold did not affect Peyton in that game."

Manning threw two pinpoint touchdown passes in the first half and directed an 88-yard, go-ahead touchdown drive in the fourth quarter in that same frigid playoff game that proclaimed Flacco as hero. But to the people here for the Super Bowl XLVII matchup between the Ravens and San Francisco 49ers, the most lasting image of Manning was his cross-body, no-steam throw in overtime that was intercepted.

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How Manning plays in cold weather, though, is irrelevant to Denver's Super Bowl bid. The Broncos and city of Denver are bidding for the Super Bowl in 2018, 2019 or 2020. Manning will be 41, and figures to be on to a new life stage, by the year 2018.

In short time -- perhaps at the owners meetings inMarch -- the NFL is expected to formally invite Denver to bid on the Super Bowl, which is now drawing well more than 100 million viewers and charging $900 for an average face-value ticket. Once it receives Denver's bid, the league will consider whether to place its annual spectacle in a city where there's a possibility of either a blizzard, or temperatures near zero, at kickoff.

"If some idiot decided a Super Bowl in New York can happen, I don't see why it can't happen in Denver," said former running back Marshall Faulk. "The weather in Denver is more reliable than what it is in New York. Not to mention it's a great stadium. Their traffic flow is good. Their airport, you can get in and out of. And they've done a lot in developing downtown. It's a city I've always thought could put on a pretty darn good Super Bowl."

If Faulk ever loses his job with the NFL Network, he can always find work with the Denver Chamber of Commerce.

Trial run in New York

In the hours before that bitter-cold playoff game between Flacco's Ravens and Manning's Broncos three weeks ago, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell offered encouragement, but no promises, when he said football is meant to be played in the elements.

Before Denver is seriously considered, the league will first evaluate its first cold-weather Super Bowl. Next season, the Super Bowl will be at Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., home of the New York Giants and Jets.

"Denver's one thing; New York is a Mecca," Irvin said. "We can't rob ourselves of that. I hate playing in the cold more than anybody. I'm a Florida guy. But we cannot deprive this scene from that stage. We'll see how it works out after that."

With New York, though, weather may not be the biggest issue. The Super Bowl may add an estimated half-million visitors to the country's most populated metropolitan area. The teams will stay and play in New Jersey. The media center will be in New York City.

Which means a lot of bridge crossing congestion between the city and Jersey.

"The Super Bowl requires the city to kind of shut its doors and allow the NFL to control it," Faulk said. "I just don't see New York doing that."

With Denver's bid, there are two issues. One is its stadium, which will be nearly 17 years old by February 2018. The NFL prefers to award Super Bowls to newer venues, which is why New York-New Jersey is hosting the Super Bowl next year and San Francisco is a favorite to host in 2016 or 2017.

But New Orleans, Miami and Tampa have relatively antiquated stadiums and they've long been in the Super Bowl rotation.

For Denver, as Flacco might put it, it's about the weather, stupid.

"Nobody wants to play the big game when it's 2 degrees," said 49ers defensive end Clark Haggans, who played at Colorado State and is participating in his third Super Bowl with his third team. "From a climate standpoint, with all the stuff that may happen -- you don't want it snowing and the fans emptying the stadium at halftime or something. It's a crapshoot in the Rocky Mountains."

Weather factor

Steve Mariucci was thinking back to when he was the 49ers' head coach and playing a team on the East Coast. For such road trips, the 49ers would fly in on Friday, practice on Saturday and play on Sunday.

"We're practicing at the stadium on a Saturday, and in the locker room on the television was a snow game," Mariucci said. "It was something like Miami of Ohio against Toledo. Our whole team was watching the game. It wasn't because it was Miami of Ohio was their alma mater, or anything. It was because it was snowing. They wanted to see guys slop around.

"That's how the public viewing is. Grandma will look at it and go what's this? Ratings would be higher in inclement weather."

Nowhere is the inclement Super Bowl debate more contested than in the two people involved in the Ravens' snap exchange. Flacco, the quarterback, started Tuesday's media day sessions by apologizing for the insensitivity of the "retarded" remark, then further explained why he's against a cold-weather Super Bowl.

"They've done it the way they've been doing it for 47 years," he said. "There's a lot that goes into this game, more than just playing the game: It's about the fans and it's about the players that played for the right to get there. It's just kind of a crazy decision, I believe."

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